When the Romney campaign named their GOTV system ORCA, were they thinking of a killer whale or a beached whale?

Does John Kline know he can come out now?

Should conservative bloggers be forced to give one massive apology to Nate Silver?

In what universe would self-deportation have been considered to be a good thing?

Legitimate rape. (Nothing more to say...just still wondering where that can possibly come from.)

When GOP does its debriefing, will they find anything they did right?

When a State Party bankrupts itself, has a major sex scandal, holds no state wide office, loses both Houses of the Legislature, loses a Congressional seat and nearly a second, nominates a US Senate candidate that loses by 30+ percent, and loses the electoral votes by 8 points....how does that Party have the gall to tell us what the voters said?

We are witness to a grand miscalculation on the part of party elites. There are loads of reasons why this happened. The national party had their spreadsheets and calculated the electoral results using the myopic focus of a single goal--"beating Obama." The GOP took the hit in MN and elsewhere.

The party dismissed the calculating and 'boots on the ground' effort put forward by the coalition of fiscal libertarians drawn from both sides of the aisle. Elites and media went out of their way to dismiss and ridicule fiscal libertarians calling them "Paulites" without the recognition that Paul was building a powerful coalition of fiscal libertarians and never expected to win the Presidency. They were burned in effigy at the convention. The dems Primary was no different. The Governor couldn't run in his own endorsement process and still win. Expect the next election to see the GOP run candidates in the primary that don't even pay lip service to the caucus process. Expect the demise of the caucus process in MN.

The miscalculation on the part of the GOP related, in part, to the marriage amendment. Those in favor were going to show up at the polls anyway. Instead of a rally of support, they empowered the opposition to show up in droves and organize. Their own coalition was divided because of it. Many of the traditional supporters didn't even cast a vote for a President or voted for a third party candidate they could, in good conscience, support. Expect gay marriage in MN in 2013. I've heard rumbles about the ink drying on bills to move the measure soon.

Somehow, abortion made its way back into the debates. Really? This is so 1990s. That debate is long over. Too many elites view women as voters with reproductive organs, no brains, and overwhelmingly vote democrat. While that message is never articulated, women's intuition tells them it's there and they run. Bringing up reproductive rights again only serves to divide coalitions along fiscal responsibility and the role of government planks.

State party leadership was more interested in their own run for Governor than running the state. Remember how Zellers was voting No on the stadium and hoped it passed? Pure hubris. Of the 19 seats that turned red to blue in the MN house, 13 voted for the stadium. The caucus took some heat for that support, which contributed to the blood bath in this election.

Democrats rightly framed the Voter ID amendment as having the possiblity of disenfranchising their constituents at the polls. No voter on either side of the aisle views that favorably. Voting is sacred ground in this country. Again, divide and conquer, the democrats win.

The money spent on the amendments sucked up all the oxygen in the room. The Dems can now run the place like a banana republic dictatorship. Watch them unceremoniously place their heads through the noose, and tighten the rope around their own necks--all while balancing on the 'majority' tight-rope.

The Republican's world appears to be shrinking ... and it seems that they are talking to the "believers" assuring them that they are on the "right" track.

When I hear Karl Rove try to explain what happened, he is focusing on the Presidential race, without considering what happened in Congressional elections.

Look to North Dakota ? a state that is as reliably Republican as Utah in the presidential vote ? but look what happened in the ND Senate contest ? Many pundits had all but written off Democrat Heidi Heitkamp?s campaign in North Dakota, where Karl Rove?s American Crossroads super PAC flooded the airwaves with attack ads with a total price tag of $2 million. Her challenger was a established Congressman ? Heitkamp won.In Wisconsin?s Senate race, Tammy Baldwin faced a Republican opponent with more name-recognition, former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, who also got backed with $2.7 million in Crossroads money. Baldwin?s victory also broke down a major barrier; she?ll be the first openly gay person to serve in the Senate.We know that Crossroads, American Action Network, American Future Fund, etc. spent a ton of money on Congressional contests. Heck, I bet AFF is really teed-off after spending money against Kyrsten Sinema in AZ-09 ? who apparently will be the first House Member that is bi-sexual.

Yep, the world is changing ?. some are moving Forward ? while some want to Restore Our Yesterday (when Rove was always right ? you go, Turd Blossom.)

All that said, the Minnesota results were impacted by turnout ... my review of a random group of legislative districts that changed hands in the 2010 elections, indicated that the MN-GOP got roughly the same amount of votes as 2008; but the DFL dropped off ... without looking yet at this year's results, my gut tells me that the Constitutional Amendment questions raised participation (even if they voted For the Amendments, they may have voted for the DFL candidate.) Thus, the question that you need to wonder about is : Who will decide to show up in 2014 ... will the MN-GOP retake the House because of overreach by the DFL (perceived, implied or real) when voters fail to show up ?And, How much will Norm Coleman's American Action Network and Karl Rove's Crossroads group spend to defeat Al Franken ? (With the sidelight thought that may the low-information voters are rejecting the negative ads and hearing the fact-checkers instead.)